If Obama is such a socialist, then why are government jobs disappearing?

JonTerbush

Time to adjust the narrative. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

February 7, 2014

ADVERTISEMENT

Sign Up for

Our free email newsletters

10 things you need to know today

Today's best articles

The week's best photojournalism

Today's top cartoons

Daily business briefing

The economy has added roughly 8.5 million jobs in the past four years, per Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Yet while the labor market has turned around since the Great Recession, one sector has consistently, conspicuously gone in the other direction: public employment.

Yes, for all the talk on the right about how President Obama is a closet socialist bent on ballooning the government, jobs at the state, local, and federal levels have steadily dried up since Obama took office. Even with a significant spike of temporary Census employees in 2010 — an unavoidable decennial blip — public sector employment has fallen nearly 3.5 percent since 2009. The graph below charts the change in public sector jobs, indexed to 100, since Obama's inauguration.

Meanwhile, the private sector has steadily added jobs. Though private sector employment increased by 142,000 jobs in January, public sector employment at all levels of government fell by 29,000. All of which underscores an undeniable trend during Obama's presidency of private sector job growth — shown by the red line below — and public sector job shrinkage.

It's not just Obama, though. Public sector employment dropped during the 1990s, when President Clinton declared the "era of big government" over. And though it ticked back up under President George W. Bush, it's once again on the decline.

"If public sector employment had been growing normally during this period, we'd have about a million more jobs than we do now and the unemployment rate would probably be below 6 percent," he added. "We are our own worst enemies."

So what gives? Why has the "Obama is a socialist" meme endured so long?

Probably because it fits the convenient, facts-be-damned narrative on the right of government run amok.